


Broken in Half

by the_authors_exploits



Category: Batman (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Bat Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, OC death, bisexual!jason, inspired by a dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 00:24:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4458230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_authors_exploits/pseuds/the_authors_exploits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lazarus Pit did more than bring Jason Todd back to life</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken in Half

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a dream I had a while back
> 
> rated T+ for a scene that I didn't realize was nearly out of a horror movie until I reread it (plus Jason's language but that's a given)

Jason might be a troublemaker, but he did care about school and his grades. He consistently got an A in his classes and he enjoyed group study nights when he wasn’t out on patrol. And, Theoren was always there.

Jason knew a lot of things—he was smart after all—and one thing he knew was that girls AND boys were hot; Theo was incredibly hot. He had that whole “good guy” thing going on, but with just the right amount of impulse to be attractive; his hair was a bit shaggy, similar to Jason’s own cut, and bleached so the sun reflected off it. A bit of a skater boy slash surfer dude look, with low resting skinny jeans and a loose tshirt and a tan that seemed natural; Theo liked to joke and his laugh was beautiful. His eyes crinkled and he would throw his head back and laugh and laugh, exposing the soft skin of his neck as his Adam’s apple would move with each chuckle.

Yes, Jason liked him. A lot.

“So Loki was Thor’s brother and a total spoiled pig.”

“No,” Jason spoke up; he set his philosophy paper aside and addressed his study mate. “That’s not true; in the comics, yes, Loki is Thor’s brother. In actual mythology, he is Thor’s uncle—Odin’s brother. And he’s not a spoiled pig; in fact—”

“No one cares, Wayne,” Jamie spoke up. “Mister Allenson doesn’t even read these questioner things.”

“I care.”

Jason turned to find Theo watching him intently.

“I care, Jamie, so let Jason finish.”

Jason shrugged and picked up his homework again. “Doesn’t matter. All I was gonna say s’that Odin actually took the majority of Loki’s children: banished them or kept them captive. Odin actually banished Loki’s only daughter to Helheim because she was ‘too hideous’ to be allowed a spot in Asgard. True story…”

At that, Theo chuckled. “First of all, that’s messed up; second of all, how do you know all that?”

Another shrug. “I like the internet.”

Theo was grinning when Jason looked up again and the blond boy nodded. “That’s pretty cool; any other info you keeping from us?”

“I can tell you about Odin carrying around Mimir’s severed head if you want.”

Jason was expecting Theo to look disgusted at that topic—after all, Jason was being a little snarky—but instead, the grin never wavered and Theo set his homework aside to lean forward, chin cradled in his hand, and say: “Hit me with it”.

Jason was smitten.

It was the little things he did; the way he seemed so aloof and untouchable, yet always ready with an open ear, or a hug for the girls who cried in the middle of the hall at school. It was the little things, like how he’d sling an arm around Jason’s shoulders when the group hung out after school, buying ice cream or candy or soda pop at the nearest convenience store. It was the little things that Theoren did—the little smiles, the soft gestures, the kind conversations, the gentle chuckle at something vulgar Jason had said (whether it be curses or a rude joke)—that had Jason weak in the knees and blushing, adamantly refusing that little fact, into his pillow late at night.

The time for school to let out for summer had Theo pulling Jason aside into an abandoned classroom; nothing much happened, just a short conversation on summer plans and then Theo was suddenly kissing Jason. Just a soft, tentative press of lips; Theo was only a few inches above Jason—Jason was still recovering from malnutrition from the street—and they fit together so well, Theo’s tanned hand gently cupping Jason’s jaw and the other one resting against his hip.

And then they were apart and Theoren was grinning sheepishly, hands stuffed in his pockets.

“Kinda wanted to do that before you go find yourself a summer fling, Jay-Kay.”

And Jason was grinning too. “I liked it; wouldn’t exactly mind if yew’re my summer fling.”

And Theo had chuckled softly. “I’d love to be your summer fling; ‘cept I’m going out of state all summer. Off to Florida; sandy beaches, high waves, maybe a bit of surfing.”

Did Jason have it hard or what, imagining what sort of muscle might be shown in a pair of swim trunks; but he also felt disappointment, as if he was being used or just teased, so he shrugged, sniffled, and took a few back steps towards the door. “Ahh, I see; then I hope you have fun and find a nice…summer fling.” He sneered and turned on his heel.

A hand clamped on his wrist and he turned to shake it off, a snarl on his lips, a harsh “fuck off” ready to come forth; but Theo looked genuinely shocked. “No, that’s not what I meant; I just… It’ll be long distance, Jason; you sure you’re okay with that? Long distance relationships are hard.”

But Jason was fourteen and young and adventurous; so he shrugged, got his wrist back from Theo’s clutches, and stuffed his hands in his jacket pocket. “I mean… If you’re really sure; you don’t have to be tied down during this summer, man.”

Theo was smart, too, like Jason and he could see the unease in Jason’s stance; the way he didn’t quite believe Theoren. So the blond reached up and unclasped the locket from around his neck. He handed it to Jason who took it tentatively. “It was a gift from my grandma”—Jason remembered all the little details Theo had spoke of his grandma, how close they both were—“so keep it safe for me, yeah? Until I come back; it’s important to me.”

The chain was delicate and the locket itself was a tiny little rectangle dangling from the end. “Okay.”

And then Theo was pulling him close and they were kissing again, softly, a gentle promise almost.

-O-

The service was beautiful; the caskets were all of the same wood, similar sizes, and the gravestone was a singular, large half circle that encompassed the three graves. The priest spoke calmly, quietly, respectfully and the crowd responded with reverence.

Come time for the reunion afterwards, after the containers of the dead had been lowered and those who cared for the buried had had ample time to mourn at their final resting, maybe throw a handful of dirt in, after all that at the reception, Jason approached an elderly woman. She was alone now, wrinkled hands wringing at her middle as she thanked those who came, accepted condolences and baskets of care and containers of food, with her little black dress down to her ankles and her little black shoes with white socks poking out. She was short, shorter than Jason—at fourteen and a half, he had grown considerably.

He shook her hand firmly but kindly and stared at a spot over her shoulder; he told himself it was because he was a sympathetic crier. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.”

But she withdrew from his hold and cupped his face, smelling of apricot hand cream. “Theoren told me about you; he loved you.”

Jason blinked fast and took the necklace from his pocket to hand it over. “He gave this to me before he left; I’m sorry, I should have returned it sooner, I…”

The elderly lady, Miss Smark, folded his hand around it. “Keep it, my boy. As a remembrance of him, yeah?” She pulled him down and kissed his brow gently before sending him on his way.

It was a plane crash, a flook, a random accident; but it had claimed many lives, Theoren and his parents included.

Jason wondered if he’d love again as he scrolled through their final conversation on his phone when Alfred drove him and Bruce home.

_Jason: the plane arrive?_

_Theo: yup, boarding now; see you soon_

_Theo: I love you_

_Jason (unsent): love you too_

-O-

It’s white and horrible and warm and sickening when he opens his eyes; the only thing comforting is the lap beneath his head and the hand in his hair.

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

“I’m dead.”

“Mmhm; it hurt, huh?”

And Jason clutches at his chest and tears spill over his eyes; he chokes on his breath. “Yeah.” Not just the metal or the boom, but the loneliness, the dashed hope. “Did it hurt you?”

And Theoren, hardly a day older than when Jason last saw him at school a year ago, smiles lopsidedly at him. “Yeah; it’s always gonna.”

So Jason cries and Theoren kisses him and he thinks if this is the afterlife it can’t be that bad.

Jason dies when he’s fifteen alone in a warehouse with a bomb for company and pain a vacant whisper in his mind; he’s reincarnated not even two days later, his soul clawing at the white and wondering why he was brought back if he was brought back _broken_.

-O-

He thinks he’s dreaming; he’s lying on his pallet that Talia has given him, while a little boy who looks too much like Batman to not be related stands guard over him. But that’s not what he’s dreaming; he’s dreaming the girl in the corner who was killed earlier that day because she had missed the target three times.

She has a perfectly diamond shaped face with solid green eyes and a stoic turn of her lips, perfectly straight hair tied in a high ponytail, and blood staining the gaping hole in her chest where her teacher had thrust his sword.

And she’s speaking gibberish, the gibberish language everyone speaks here. Jason hasn’t tried to pick it up, though he knows he could; most days he stays on his sleep pallet with Talia or the demon kid or some faceless but trusted assassin standing guard. He can’t roll out of bed yet; he feels hollow. So he doesn’t try.

Now he wishes he had so he could know why the girl is haunting him; the demon kid isn’t bothered or hasn’t noticed the girl’s presence so Jason rolls over, hears the snick of metal shut, and all goes quiet. But he doesn’t sleep.

-O-

He wishes he were dreaming; Damian, the demon child, is at his side. Both are dressed in warm coats and jeans and boots, both have their hands shoved in their pockets and Jason feels even more hollow than before.

_Here lies Jason Todd_

That’s what his gravestone had said; at least Theoren had been treated kinder, with the elegant script of Shakespeare (one of his favorites) commemorating his short life and the love he left behind. Jason gets a vacant goodbye.

Obviously not loved, at least not enough to not be replaced; Jason is seventeen and there’s a Tim Drake sitting across from Bruce Wayne in a Starbucks and a Robin by Batman on the rooftops.

Damian touches him then—“Come; we should find shelter for the night”—and gently leads the elder boy away from the scene.

Jason wishes he were dreaming; Jason wishes he had stayed dead.

-O-

Jason doesn’t dream he finds, when he’s fighting besides a nameless Damian in vigilante clothing—a sort of knockoff from Robin, sans cape and plus katanas, but Jason doesn’t mention it and neither does Damian—and the locket flies from out beneath his glove and opens. He wears it there now, so he can see it because he doesn’t feel anything anymore, his nerve endings shot from the explosion and the Pit can only heal so much, and he couldn’t stand not having its small weight on his breast; he had been thrown in the Pit with it on, still dressed in his burial suit and everything, so it should be just as dirty as Jason but it’s not ever going to be anything other than pure in his mind.

But Jason isn’t dreaming when he goes boneless in the middle of the streets and he’s suddenly in a white room with a table and chair that Theo is sitting at reading Hamlet.

“Theo…” Jason breaths; maybe he doesn’t dream. Maybe he’s dead again. “Am I dead?”

And Theo chuckles some, stands, moves around the table to pull the redhead close—Red Hood clothing and all. And he breathes deeply the smell of blood and motorcycle fluid. “Nahh, Jay-Kay; you aren’t dead.”

Maybe, Jason thinks, maybe he dies a lot.

And then he’s blinking at the dark sky of Gotham and Damian is kneeling over him, holding one of his guns up, yelling at someone Jason can’t see just yet; there’s a tiny gauntleted hand grasping his wrist and he blinks slowly.

There’s a warmth seeping from his limbs and when he pulls himself up into a standing position he feels hollow again; but there’s Batman to contend with so they can get out of this without a fieldtrip to Arkham and Jason doesn’t dwell on how unwhole and dirty he feels.

-O-

If Jason came back wrong, Damian could care less. After being shoved with the quiet, damaged, broken boy on a plane by his mother, Damian could care less about anything but beating up some bad guys and learning more about his father.

But Jason didn’t come back wrong, he just came back missing a part of him, and Damian pities—weakness—too much to tell him how to fix it. So he closes the locket when the latch opens and coaxes Jason back to the world of the living; because Jason’s eyes look alive after those episodes and Damian doesn’t think it has anything to do with being nearer to his other broken half.

Sadly, he doesn’t mean this Theo Jason sometimes wakes up whispering about; Damian isn’t stupid. That there are two halves of Jason in the Other side, but that only one can be saved and it’s not going to be a happy ending so Damian keeps his mouth shut.

-O-

Jason sees Catherine, too, and his always-absent father when these little scenarios are cruel. He sees an emaciated woman with tiny pricks in her arm whispering apologies over and over and he sees a man with a potbelly drinking from a never ending bottle of Jack Daniels watching the woman.

He doesn’t speak to these apparitions; they don’t make him feel good and when he wakes he’s usually sick in the toilet or wastebasket, whichever is closer. These apparitions sometimes change, though, and he’d like to talk to them—say something, maybe yell accusations or plead for a reason or better apology. But instead he normally sits at a dining room table made out of plastic with scratches on the tabletop in a rickety plastic chair while his once-mother dishes out Spanish rice for supper and his father rumbles about the drug deal for Two-Face he’s going out for tomorrow night.

Sometimes it’s a memory Jason sees and other times it’s just a silent horror and while he partakes in the memories he still keeps a distance between him and the apparitions. It’s something he’d like to let go of one day: this ugly past.

-O-

Jason meets someone he’s killed; it’s not a white room, but a gray one with washes of red on the walls and the man with the scar on his cheek and the little girl waiting for him to return home that Jason killed yesterday is sitting in rags in the middle of the room. When he looks up, his eye sockets are empty pools of black that tears pour from.

“Why?” is the garbled question.

“You were doing human trafficking,” is the monotonous response. “You had to be stopped.”

Another question: “By death?”

“Death is permanent,” comes the snarl.

“Is it?” This is a new voice and Jason turns around; there are other people he’s killed, he recognizes them all, always will remember their faces as they beg for their lives to the stoic helmet he wears. But it’s not them that speak; it’s Theoren. Jason didn’t kill Theoren.

“What?”

“Is death permanent, Jay?” His eyes are kind, calmly watching him.

“Yes.”

Theo smiles and shuffles forward; he brushes a hand against Jason’s shoulder. “What does that make you?”

There’s not a shrivel of hesitance in his response: “A monster.”

-O-

He wakes up in a nondescript hospital with the demon kid perched besides him glaring stonily at Richard Grayson standing on crutches at the foot of the bed. He remembers the previous few days; the little trail he’d left for Batman, to his safe house near Crime Alley, to Joker laughing about a family reunion and Bruce turning his back on him—a good soldier no more—, and he remembers the explosion. He remembers Batman trying to save him from it.

“Grayson pulled you from the wreckage; Wayne is unaware of our position.” Damian’s glare doesn’t waver from the ex-Robin, daring the man to step closer, to try an _d touch my partner again and you’ll not have a limb_. “Rest.”

So Jason lets Damian take over because the drugs in his system are the good kind and he’d really like to feel Theo again even if it is all a dream.

-O-

“So what are you saying?” Grayson whispers.

Jason is asleep on the couch, the painkillers knocking him out good. Dick had moved his little brother—make that plural now—from the hospital to his own house when the time had come; Damian refused to leave Jason alone with Dick, or alone in general, so that meant their conversations were held in the living room.

“I’m saying Todd isn’t whole; that’s why he seems so…different to what history has shown.”

“He’s always been brash and angry.”

“Has he always been murderous?”

At this, Grayson looks away. “I…I don’t think so…”

Damian knows of the little issue with Garzonas, but he also knows that Jason is _wrong_ right now. So he speaks with conviction: “He didn’t push that man.”

Grayson doesn’t look convinced, but he does look ashamed at his thoughts and only the slightest bit surprised Damian knows of that incident; he puts the conversation back on track and refuses eye contact. “So what do you mean by ‘not whole’?”

Damian scampers from his seat on the coffee table to Jason’s side and, too gently for his thunderous face and booming words, unravels the locket from around the older teen’s wrist; he returns to his seat on the table. He holds out the locket, dangling it by its chain. “This went into the Pit with him; the Lazarus Pit is more than a rejuvenating pool. It’s a hole to purgatory and the afterlife, whatever your beliefs may be, and it searches for the soul of the body within the waters at that particular time; your soul wares down as you age and the Pit brings the fragments together again, such as in the case of my grandfather.

In Todd’s case, the Pit shoved his soul into his body from the afterlife and, whether or not you believe the terrible things said to happen there, the Pit has rarely been used for dead people. This could be an indication of his strange behavior, but there’s more.”

Dick dutifully keeps his mouth shut and lets the boy continue.

“Mother tossed all of Todd’s things after his little swim, but he was inconsolable, unresponsive, and violent for weeks that I returned this trinket. Todd feels a vast amount of emotions at great magnitudes and sentimentality was sure to be a large one; I rationalized that something familiar might…help.”

Grayson takes the locket, examines it, goes to open it when Damian snatches it back with a snarl.

“Don’t do that!” He gives the eldest a withering glare that pinches his face in something akin to _adorableness_ in Dick’s book. “At least wait for the explanation to be completed, you imbecile!”

Jason shifts in the background and mumbles something; Damian spares him a quick glance before continuing his story. “I noticed things—Mother too—like Todd staring at a corner, murmuring, or petting the air.” He pulls a sour face. “Mother thought it was Pit Madness; not entirely wrong, but not the truth either.” He holds up the locket again. “The Pit made a door way between here and there; but in order to do so it needed to hold onto—a piece of Jason. It needed a bridge, so it split Todd’s soul: a piece here—” Damian motions to the slumbering Jason before pointing to the delicate jewelry in his hands. “And a piece there.”

-O-

Theo’s smile is strange and Jason wonders what’s wrong; he asks as much. They’re in a meadow this time, with the sun bright above them in the clear blue sky, with the smell of grass and dandelions all around them.

“What’s wrong?”

Theo’s smile falters, as does the hand brushing through Jason’s auburn hair. “Jay, stuff’s gonna be changing soon, ok? I don’t want you to be scared and I don’t want you to be angry. But I need you to promise me something, ok?”

Jason shakes his head and sits up. “What are you talking about?”

“Promise me you’ll take care of yourself; promise me, Jay.”

His brows are furrowed and he shakes his head again. “What are you talking about?”

Theo kisses him, needily then softly and then he pulls away completely; when they open their eyes, his are watery. He brushes a thumb over Jason’s cheek. “Promise me, Jay; you have a chance to be happy and _live_. Promise me.”

So Jason does with another kiss, anything to stop that look on Theoren’s face.

-O-

Damian doesn’t appreciate it when Bruce Wayne comes barging through the door with Dick not far behind him; he clicks the locket in his hands shut and stands abruptly, glaring as sourly as possible at the taller man. Jason sleeps on unaware on the couch besides him.

“What is _he_ doing here? You said we wouldn’t involve him until Todd agreed!” Damian sneers at Grayson. “You lied,” he hisses.

But Dick shakes his head. “No, no I didn’t; Damian, I’m so sorry. He figured out I was hiding something—he is the world’s greatest detective…”

Bruce only spares Jason a glance before turning to the child. “Hello, Damian; Dick tells me you’re my son?”

Damian doesn’t say anything; he’d looked up to the man for years, from the grand stories his mother would speak of, of the man who lurked in the shadows, patrolled the streets with the force and power of a legend. Now, however, after spending time with Jason and seeing the corrupt justice on the streets… Now it is difficult to see Bruce Wayne as perfect; he is flawed. And Damian feels somehow betrayed, by this man and by himself for feeling torn between the legend and the boy on the couch, both flawed in their own ways.

“Yes, we are apparently related; though I fail to see how that relates to you being present at the moment.”

“I’m here to taken Jason home,” is the quick reply. “You as well, Damian” tacked on as an afterthought.

The boy’s jaw muscles work and he glares up at the man; Damian doesn’t take orders well. With the Red Hood, it’s a partnership, born out of mutual respect and a strange bond of trust. Wayne? So far, neither. Grayson? All crumbled the minute he walked through that door.

“Bruce,” Dick interjects. “There’s something we need to discuss; before you make any decisions, okay? Hear Baby Bird out, ok?”

Damian thinks he’s supposed to be ‘Baby Bird’, but nicknames are lost on him; he wonders if it’s an insult of some kind? He’ll request information from Jason when he wakes up.

-O-

Jason is not happy to awake to Bruce looming overhead, even more so unhappy when Damian knocks him upside the head for trying to get up from the couch; he is, however, sufficiently numbed when they inform him of his situation.

“You’re saying I’m part of— _what_ —a portal?”

Damian hasn’t made eye contact with the redhead, steadily watching the two other men in the room. Jason is irked by the boy’s decision to hide this from him, but at the same time oddly thankful. Closing the portal or whatever it is would mean no more Theoren and Jason really likes to see Theoren.

“Essentially, Todd, yes; between the living and the dead.”

“So,” Bruce speaks in his Batman voice, the one that takes no disagreement. “We need to pull your soul out and fuse it with you again.”

Jason turns a glare on him. “Like hell; I’m doing just fine without your help, _Brucie_. C’mon, Damian, let’s go.”

Damian hits his temple again and he dutifully falls back to the couch. “We are not going anywhere, Todd, until we… fix this.”

“There’s nothing to fix,” Jason insists; he curls an arm around his sore ribs and rolls his eyes around the room, mapping out the best escape route to avoid a slapping Damian and pursuing Dick and Bruce. “I’m perfectly fine.”

Dick catches his roving eyes, holds his gaze. “You’re not, Jason.”

The tension is only noticeable if you knew where to look: around Jason’s eyes, near his brow, and in the downturn of his lips. In an instance he is over the couch and out the window, Damian at his heels.

-O-

Surprisingly, they are able to evade Nightwing and Batman for the night, though if Damian were to be honest he’d say it was because they weren’t actively pursuing them. Jason is highly agitated, having chosen the farthest safe house on the very outskirts of Gotham, and hasn’t stopped cleaning and checking his guns since their arrival.

“Rest,” Damian whispers into the quiet night; he can spot the strain in the older teen’s shoulders. “You are still unwell; Batman and Nightwing will not come to us tonight. Perhaps tomorrow, but not tonight.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Damian takes a moment to think; how should he word this? He’s not actually sure so he scoops up the pieces of the guns scattered about the coffee table and dumps them in the corner, as far away from Jason as possible. “I did not deem it pertinent at the time.”

Jason scoffs a laugh. “Pertinent? You didn’t think it was important to tell me I’m missing _half my goddamn soul_?”

Damian refuses to childishly shrug, instead opting to watch Jason fidget with the clip in his hands, shove bullet after bullet in it, empty it, reload. “I believed you were capable of handling yourself with only half a soul; besides, you seem to enjoy your spouts in the afterlife and who am I to rip that from you?”

Jason’s hands haven’t stopped shaking since they’ve run, but he pauses briefly in his actions. “Rip…? What?”

Quick as a whip, Damian has the locket in his hands. “Happiness, Todd, surely you are familiar with it?”

It’s the mocking lilt that has Jason glaring, leaning back in the couch and watching the locket closely. “You’re asking the boy who watched their mom overdose, lived on the streets of Gotham City, and then died at the hands of a psychopathic clown, so you tell me: have I ever been familiar with happiness.”

“Yes,” is the immediate response and Damian cradles the locket close. “I know you have, with this Theoren—and with Wayne and Grayson.”

Damian dodges the handful of bullets that are thrown violently at him. “ _HOW DARE YOU?_ ”

The boy hasn’t ever heard Jason shriek like that before; he sounds like a wild animal, looks like a cat cornered by a pair of demented children armed with rocks in a back alleyway with nowhere to run.

“I was never happy and you know it; I’ve told you everything horrible that happens in that manor, the training, the ‘not-good-enoughs’, everything and suddenly it means _nothing_?”

Shaking of his dark head, Damian sets the locket down between them. “Are you sure? Are you positively certain, Todd— _Jason,_ that you were never happy? Or is happiness on the other side, in the other half of your soul?”

When Jason doesn’t respond, Damian leaves him there in the lowlight of the living room; it’s up to Jason now, to take the next step. Damian prays, though not religious, that he makes the right decision.

-O-

Two days later, Jason returns from a brief absence and hands Damian a Styrofoam box; within it is a small stack of pancakes from the diner down the street.

“Th—thank you, Todd, I appreciate the gift.”

Jason nods; he looks uncomfortable, shifting, with his hands stuffed in his pockets and Damian has taken note of the locket, abandoned on the coffee table from all those nights ago. After a few bites of the plain pancakes, Jason speaks, having hovered over the boy. “How do you know,” his voice cracks and he swallows. “How do you know my soul has been split in two and I’m just not… I dunno, hallucinating the dead?”

“Because you are not…”

“Normal?” It’s spoken with a smirk, but fearfully so.

Damian shakes his head. “No, you are not who you are; you are half of who you are. The Lazarus Pit is known to chew, swallow, and spit you out an angry or unwhole ghost, a shell if you will. And with the addition of a…doorway in the locket, the Pit took advantage of you. Why, I do not know, but we do need to bring your soul back together.”

“Why? I can…I can learn, to be good again, I can learn and we can keep the doorway open, can’t we? Damian?”

But the boy shakes his head. “It’s not about closing the doorway; it’s about putting you together again. So you can…so you can apologize and realize what you are trying to leave behind.” Damian knows Bruce Wayne is not perfect, but he is also aware that he was perfect enough for Jason.

But the older boy is shaking his head and slowly backing away. “I won’t let you, I don’t need to have my other half.”

“Todd.”

“If we have to pull something out, we pull Theo!”

At that Damian starts; he should have been expecting such a reaction, for Jason to feel that way, after all Damian is well aware of the relationship the two share and all the times Jason sees Theo. That’s the reason Damian has waited so long, because he knows Theo is—was—an important person to Jason and that these moments gave him what he needed to keep living. “We cannot pull Theoren out.”

Jason shakes his head vigorously. “We have to.”

“Jason, we cannot pull Theoren out because the doorway is made for half a soul, not a full one, and we are not the Lazarus Pit; only the Lazarus Pit can resurrect someone. We cannot pull Theoren out.”

Jason covers his face, scrubs at his eyes, clutches at his hair, and cries.

-O-

Theo smiles as their chest rise and fall in perfect unison, pressed against one another in the white place they first met. “So, when are you leaving?”

If asked, Jason will not admit to crying. “I have to soon; Damian is watching over everything at the moment and we don’t want to leave the demon spawn waiting.”

Theo nods, presses a quick kiss to Jason’s head. “I’ve enjoyed our time together; I’m glad we got this chance, Jason.”

The auburn haired boy nods against the other’s collar bone. “I don’t want to leave you. Maybe… Maybe I can just stay here. We can stay here; I’m happy with you!”

“But you’re happy with Bruce, too, and I know you’ll understand when you’re back.” Theo pushes the other boy away, enough to look at his face. “Because you’re going to _feel_ again, Jason; you’re going to love life, you always have, and I can’t wait.”

Jason leans into the hand cupping his face, kisses the cool palm, whispers what he didn’t get the chance to last time: “I love you”.

-O-

Theo can’t go with Jason to retrieve his soul, so he leaves the dead boy in the white space and walks away, towards the even whiter horizon. He turns back periodically, to wave and cry and because he wants to run back, but Theo gives a wave, a smile, and shoos him onwards—until Jason turns back and Theo is nowhere to be see. He takes the time to panic a bit, jog backwards, but it’s white everywhere and Jason steals himself, slaps his head irritably because he is not going to cry again. He at least got the chance to say goodbye this time.

He turns back to the task at hand; he needs to find his soul.

And he does; he finds a bright yellow ball of light huddled against a white wall of this place, whispering and laughing; it whispers “ _Bruce”_ and “ _Dick”_ and “ _Smile”_ and Jason just stares at it for a minute.

“Hey!” He yells out, because what else is he supposed to do? The light quiets, listening, and Jason clenches his fists. “I’m leaving Theoren for you so this’d better be worth it!”

For a moment, they’re at a standstill; then, there’s a great surge and Jason is wrapped in the yellow light, warmth all around him, as if the sun has come to give him a hug. There is laughter all around and a lightness to his bones, air in his lungs, and he can feel a soft breeze against his cheek.

It feels like home.

-O-

“Wake up, Jason; come on, open your eyes.”

He knows that voice; he called out for it ages ago, when there was a crowbar and a clown. He groans, tries to open his eyes, but he feels tired if content. There are hands cradling his face like he’s precious and for the first time in forever Jason thinks he just might be.

Damian clicks the locket shut and hands it to Dick, who’s standing just behind him. On the creaky old floor of Jason’s safe house, Jason lays prone but awake and alive and whole.

“Jason?” Bruce tries again; Damian had called him and Dick an hour after their little séance had begun and they’d come at once. “Son?”

Jason’s eyes flutter, lashes brushing against his cheeks, and teal eyes become visible under a heavy lidded gaze. “Br’ce?”

Bruce smiles down at the boy. “That’s it; do you know where you are?”

Jason closes his eyes again, tired and warm. “Yeah; god, Bruce I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry, please…”

Bruce shushes him, brushes against the tears down the boy’s cheek. “There’ll be time for that later, time for that later.” Right now, Bruce has his son back and he would like to make it last as long as possible.

After a short pause, Jason speaks again. “Can we go home, Dad?”

Damian begrudgingly allows the hug Dick pulls him into, though he gives a soft _tch_ , and Bruce brushes a hand through Jason’s hair, admittedly not fighting tears.

-O-

Two years later and Jason stands before the roughened stone, the mossy marker that reads out Theoren’s name. He scuffs his shoe against the snowy ground and smiles, hunched into his leather jacket that Bruce had given him for his birthday a few short months ago.

“Just came to say hi.” It’s a bit of a rough day, Jason will admit, but at least he can _smile_ and feel the locket against his chest. “Been missing you.”

The wind whips and Jason shivers, turns away after a quiet bye, and returns to his bike; he’s not alone, hasn’t been for a while, and the hand that holds out his helmet is a welcoming reminder that—despite what he has done, how he acted, the shortcomings he is still working to overcome—he will always have a family to support him. He cinches the helmet and straddles the bike, hands going to start the engine.

“Want some coffee, Timmy? My treat!”

Tim rolls his eyes good naturedly at the nickname, but grips his brother’s waist and consents as they go racing down the road. “Sure, Starbucks?”

“Hell yeah!”

There are two Robins at Batman’s side and the occasional visit of Nightwing, though Jason has yet to assimilate onto the roofs again—if ever. He finds civilian life quant, enjoyable, so he indulges in the warmth of spring, the refreshing water of the pool during summer, the roughened crunch of leaves under his boot as they turn colors, and the harsh wind of winter. He reveals in all of it, in the touches and embraces of his family, the bickering that hardly goes beyond a teasing tone, the smiles that tug at his lips and the laughter that bubbles in his chest. It’s a second chance that he is lucky to have regardless of the circumstances.

He enjoys life, despite its short comings.

 _“You were right,”_ he thinks. _“Theo, I love life.”_

**Author's Note:**

> The ending was a bit rushed and it's not really explained that well but I hope it was still enjoyable!


End file.
